


A Hand to Hold

by Glory_Jean



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, i don't know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-15
Updated: 2009-02-15
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:38:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glory_Jean/pseuds/Glory_Jean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not what you think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hand to Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Another experiment in prose. Thanks to [](http://bananasandroses.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://bananasandroses.livejournal.com/)**bananasandroses** for the read through and the encouragement to post this.
> 
> Set in Parallel Earth, post JE (An AU fix-it if it's not clear)
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------------

A sharp click near her nose wakes her and she opens her eyes to his blue ones – no, _brown_. His head is propped up by his hand, elbow braced against the softness of the mattress.

His voice comes to her as a whisper.

“ _It's not what you think_.”

 

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

 

She half dozes off at work somewhere in the middle of a teetering stack of paper and his Northern tones reach her ears, “Time's in flux. It's changing every second. Your cozy little world could be rewritten like that.”

She hears the sharp click of his fingers

“Nothing is safe. Remember that. Nothing.”

She hears the click again and wakes up.

 

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff."

She wakes to him watching her face, head propped up by his hand.

"I know those are your words, but you never said them to _me_."

" _I_ never said them at all."

She frowns at this.

“He doesn't have forever, you know. Despite what he may think.”

She doesn't ask who he means.

“But I have you.”

“Do you?”

“Don't I?” panic edges her voice.

His eyes are warm. “As long as you need me.”

She looks at him, confused.

“You can do anything, _anything_ , Rose Tyler. You know that, right?”

She regards him as a curiosity and he smiles, his cheeks dimpling adorably.

“But do you know what you need, more than anything else in the universe?” he asks.

She shakes her head and he reaches forward, grasping her hand and pulling it to his lips.

“A hand to hold.”

 

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

 

Tony is sitting up in his high chair and while Jackie flits around adding food to his tray.

“I know this wasn't what you expected, Sweetheart, but you're doing fine, really,” she tells Rose suddenly.

“What?”

“You and the Doctor. Or who ever he is, really. I know you meant to stay.”

She sits beside Tony and offers him a bit of something on a spoon. She smiles up at Rose.

Then things start to get strange.

The world shifts and buzzes like static on a TV screen - or the flicker of a hologram, perhaps.

She sees her home of long ago.

“You've had genuine shock and trauma,” her mother is saying. “You can get compensation.”

Then world buzzes back to normal and Jackie is looking up at her expectantly.

“Pardon?” Rose says.

“I asked if you were alright.”

“Yeah, fine,” Rose says a bit sheepishly.

“I wouldn't have fought you, Sweetheart. I want you to know that. You deserve to be happy.”

“Thanks, Mum.”

 

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

 

Sometimes the shifting scenes come out of nowhere now. She aimlessly flips through the TV channels and suddenly before her is a flickering image from a lifetime ago.

"Do that for me Rose," he says as before, "have a fantastic life."

With a flicker and a buzz, the image shifts.

"I'm burning up a sun to say goodbye."

 

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

"I'm losing my mind," she sobs into his shirt.

"No, you aren't."

"How can you be sure?"

"Rose, what does Bad Wolf mean?" he asks, urgently.

"You know very well. It means..."

_the darkness... the big bad wolf -_

"It means- "

_there's something of the wolf about you..._

"It -"

_I create myself. I take the words..._

Her breath is harsh in her lungs.

_I scatter them in time and space._

She can see gold behind her eyes.

_A message to lead myself here._

"It's always meant the same thing Rose. We just haven't been very good at listening." His voice is so quietly gentle, so much like _he_ used to speak to her, the tears threaten again.

"Are we really going to do this, then?"

_I can spend it with you, if you want._

"We are," he says firmly, his voice and eyes steady.

"Okay. Do it, then."

 

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

 

The howl echoes soundlessly and even the dark space between the universes convulses.

 

.:*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

 

She looks at him, new, new Doctor, new, new, new Doctor, her first Doctor....

Blue eyes and brown, blue suit and brown, three in one, two halves of a whole - she can't see which is which anymore.

" _Time is like a great big wibbly, wobbily ball of timey whimey...stuff."_

_"Your cozy little world ...."_

_"It's not what you think..."_

_"Do that for me Rose..."_

_"Re-written like that..."_

"Where are we going?" she asks.

" _Farther than we've ever gone before."_

"Do you wanna come with me?"

"Yes." she answers.

*click*  



End file.
